In
the 2nd
pāda, the old Nepalese manuscript has iti niścayam yayuḥ (they
came to the conclusion that...
[EHJ]; they concluded: “....”
[PO]). But Luders conjectured iti vismayaṁ yayuḥ, and this is
supported by the Chinese translation, in which 驚 means
to be surprised, astonished, or dismayed. Besides that, reading
vismayam rather than niścayam allows me to make better sense of the
whole verse.

The
logic, as I read it, is that those common folk were dismayed
precisely because they were common folk (janāh; plural), as
contrasted with the people (janaḥ; singular) of that city which Aśvaghoṣa identified with emptiness.

As
common folk, they had no means-whereby they might avert the eye-born
flood of their falling tears, and no means-whereby they might allow
tears to fall. Since they were not in possession of a practical
means-whereby, the truth expressed in Chandaka's words was too
difficult for them – however well-informed they may have been in
the realm of intellectual knowledge – and so they were dismayed.

As
common folk, equally, they reacted to their grief and dismay by seeking to
apportion blame. And in particular, as devout religious believers
(bhaktimataḥ), in the time-honoured spirit of
mea culpa, they blamed
their own sinful minds.

A
contrast may be drawn then, between (a) the practice suggested in
yesterday's verse as I read it, namely, just sitting with the
confidence to let it (= the child/embryo of a lord among men) be; and
(b) the habits of religious believers who blame the problems of the world on original sin (or on the ancient
Indian equivalent of that doctrine).

Again,
then, today's verse can be read as one of those verses that
encourages us to sit primarily by demonstrating how NOT to. And the
great thing NOT to practice, today's verse as I read it reminds us,
is blame.

The
individual in Aśvaghoṣa's writing who is biggest on blame is the
striver in SN Cantos 8 & 9. In process of translating and
commenting on those cantos, I came back several times to the noble
truth of Margaritaville – “some people claim that there's a woman to
blame, but I know, it's my own damn fault.” The folk described
in today's verse don't put the blame on women, or anywhere outside of
themselves, which is good. Still, they blame themselves, or blame
their own minds, as religious folk are ever prone to do. And this
blame, we are to understand, is not the same as seeing where faults
originally lie, as the Buddha taught Nanda to do. Yes, the fault,
dear Brutus, is in ourselves not in the stars. But seeing where the
fault lies, in our own minds, need not be a prelude to blaming our own minds.

If
those of us who tend to apportion blame before we see faults as
faults, could train our minds to blame less and see more, that for a
start might be an example of the work on the self that the Buddha
called bhāvanā.

Speaking
for myself, I have observed over the years a tendency among women to
put the blame on men – a tendency that some women and men have attempted to
justify intellectually under the banner of an -ism – and equally
the tendency among men to say that there's a woman to blame,
instead of knowing that it's our own damn fault. And seeing
through those two deluded tendencies, I have tended to ask myself the
question: where, below surface appearances, does the blame really
lie?

So
today's verse, when I reflect on it, reminds me that the asking of
such a question is not necessarily part of the solution – it might
rather be part of the problem.

VOCABULARY

idam
(acc. sg. n.): this

vacaḥ
(acc. sg.): n. speech, words

tasya
(gen. sg.): his

niśamya
= abs. ni- √ śam: to hear, observe

te
(nom. pl. m.): those

janāḥ
(nom. pl.): m. people

su-duṣkaram
(acc. sg. m.): mfn. very difficult to be done , most arduous